


lost in an image

by cherryvanilla



Series: Yuletide Assignments and Treats [15]
Category: Lucky - Britney Spears (Music Video)
Genre: Closeted Character, Coming Out, F/F, Fame, Gen, Hollywood, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5212748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryvanilla/pseuds/cherryvanilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hope you enjoy this treat, athersgeo, as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for requesting this fandom.</p>
    </blockquote>





	lost in an image

**Author's Note:**

  * For [athersgeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athersgeo/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy this treat, athersgeo, as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for requesting this fandom.

Give it five years, they tell her. Five years of being in her prime, of getting coveted role after coveted role. Five years of makeup and photoshoots and premieres and award shows. Five years of fake relationships and setups and carefully placed tabloid stories. 

And she’d been doing it. Playing the game, being told where to stand, when to smile, what to wear, what to say and not say. She should’ve been happy. She should’ve been grateful. She had things that most people only dreamt of. She had dresses brought to her for award shows, she wore the most expensive jewelry you could imagine. She had limos and car services and personal trainers. 

She shouldn’t feel this emptiness. She shouldn’t feel frustration over numerous takes and annoyance over being pampered. She won an Oscar after only her second film. She should be grateful. She should be happy. She shouldn’t be crying herself to sleep most nights. 

Five years, just five years. She could handle it, could fight through the tears. 

Five years. 

It was nothing. 

And then, in year three, she meets Karla. 

__________________________________

She’s just publicly ended things with her latest fake boyfriend, the co-star in her last film, because he had to go ahead and actually fall in love for real. 

“How dare he, right?” her manager Julie says. 

She just sighs and removes her makeup after doing a photoshoot for Marie Claire. “Imagine that,” Lucky replies. “Someone actually in love.” 

She says the words sarcastically, but her manager doesn’t take them that way. 

When she gets home, she decides to go for a walk. She puts on her sunglasses even though it’s nighttime and heads down to her local coffee shop. 

She sits with her book and drinks coffee and just -- enjoys being out. There’s no one really bothering her in the back, which is nice. There’s a girl, though, kind of watching her. 

Lucky sighs, wonders if she wants an autograph. 

She starts to dig into her bag when the girl comes closer, ready to get out the sharpie she keeps just for these reasons.

“Hi, um,” she says. She’s got dark long hair, brown eyes, tall and slender. “I just wanted to tell you that’s a great book.” 

“That’s, I appreciate--” Lucky begins, the words automatic. Then her brain catches up with what the woman said and she blinks. “Oh,” she says, looking at the paperback in her hands. “Um. Yeah, I’m enjoying it.” 

The woman smiles. “It’s my favorite of the past year. You’ll like it.” 

“Um, hey, thank you.” 

The woman smiles and nods and Lucky has no idea if she’s recognized her or not, but she’d like her to stay. 

“Feel free to join me, if you’re not in a rush?” she says. 

“Oh, no, I don’t want to interrupt.” 

Lucky waves her hand. “It’s fine, really.” 

“Alright,” she smiles. “Let me get my things.”

When she comes back, Lucky finds out her name is Karla. She sadly has to give her her name in return. 

She doesn’t want to lie. 

She takes off the sunglasses, says, “I’m Lucky.” 

Karla smiles at her. “You don’t look the same as you do in movies.” 

She supposed it would’ve been too much to hope that Karla not recognize her at all. 

“I didn’t know it was you until you took off the glasses,” Karla continues, as if reading her mind. 

“Good to know my disguise works.” 

They talk. They talk for hours. 

Karla is a speech therapist, she lives in Los Feliz, she has a brother and a sister. 

She doesn’t follow the press or the tabloids. 

She has no idea about Lucky’s recent ‘breakup.’ 

She wants to hang out again. 

________________________________

So they do. They meet in coffee shops, at Karla’s house, at _Lucky’s_ house. Lucky hasn’t had a new friend that wasn’t in the business since she got famous. It’s nice. It feels like it did before she had all of this. 

Except she’s also feeling more than friendship. 

And one night, when Karla leans over and kisses her on the couch, Lucky stops thinking of all the reasons why she can’t have this and thinks about the reason she should: because she wants it. 

She kisses back, lets Karla lay her out on the couch and kiss her until she can barely breathe. 

She hasn’t done this in a while. Not since she made it big. 

Five years, they said. “Or you need to be discreet, make sure they sign NDA’s, make sure it doesn’t last more than a night.” 

Lucky hadn’t wanted to do all of that, so she’s done nothing at all. She was 23 now, she had a decent supply of hidden lesbian porn and a bullet that got a lot of use. 

When Karla stands up, pulls off her shirt, and tugs Lucky up with her she thinks about the NDA’s she still has, sitting in a locked drawer of her desk. 

She should get them, before this goes any further. 

She doesn’t. 

____________________________

They keep it lowkey. No one suspects anything. They start staying inside more than not, which Karla is fine with, prefers it that way. Lucky’s not sure how there hasn’t been paparazzi pictures of Karla exiting or entering her place yet, but so far it’s been a few weeks and they’re good. 

And then it happens. Two months in. It’s two months more than Lucky thought she’d get, honestly. 

There are photos and a two-paragraph blurb suggesting they are ‘more than just friends.’ 

Her manager is furious, her publicist is furious, her _agent_ is furious. 

Karla’s a little shell-shocked. 

Lucky’s just tired. 

“What do you mean you’re tired?” Julie asks, voice aghast. 

Lucky lifts her head from where it was resting on the desk in Julie’s office. She looks around at the eyes on her. The people who manage her. Who tell her who to be. 

“I mean I’m tired. I don’t want to wait two more years.” 

“You can’t just-- no. You’ve got deals, you’ve got endorsements.” 

“I want to be myself!” Lucky exclaims. “I want to -- I just want to be myself, okay?” 

_____________________________

No one’s happy. They ask her to wait, let them plant a few stories, explain away the past and create a future. 

Karla comes over and they curl up together on the couch. 

“Are you sure about this?” she asks softly, running her hand through Lucky’s hair, lips on her temple. 

“I am,” Lucky replies. It’s only been a few months, but she feels this down in her bones. “If you’re okay with it. Your life is gonna change.” 

“Don’t worry about me,” she whispers. “I just -- don’t want you to come out because of me.” 

“I’m not,” Lucky says, turning her head to meet Karla’s eyes. “I’m coming out because of me.” 

________________________________

Six months later there’s an interview with Out and an appearance on Ellen. Basically everyone’s known for a while, the slow roll of planted press easing the world into the official news. 

Karla sits with her for the Out interview, holding her hand, and stands off to the side of the stage during Ellen, greeting her afterward with a kiss. 

When Lucky goes to bed nowadays, she no longer cries. 

She’s got someone to come home to. 

And when she looks in the mirror, the girl looking back is no one else but herself.


End file.
